Liam Coen's Stance on Jaguars' Offense vs. Defense Thus Far

Jacksonville Jaguars head coach Liam Coen is in a much different state of mind this offseason.

After years of simply focusing on the offense with the Los Angeles Rams, Kentucky Wildcats and Tampa Bay Buccaneers, Coen is now learning to celebrate the wins of his team's defense as head coach.

Through the early stage of the offseason program and the first OTA practice on Monday, it appeared the defense was making a quicker transition on the practice field than the offense.

But as Coen noted, that is expected to be the case.

“I think always, the defense is typically always ahead. It’s a little bit more of a go, line up, reactionary kind of phase, if you will. I’m not diminishing what they have to learn defensively. There are a lot of calls, a lot of different fundamentals, communication that has to occur," Coen said after the first OTAs practice.

"I think, naturally, you would say that offensively there’s a lot more that ends up maybe slowing you down pre-snap and post-snap. But I would hope that the defense would be a little further ahead, to be honest with you. I think that’s typically the case as you go all the way through training camp and as you go into the season.”

As Coen would note, it is still an early phase for the entire team. He isn't expecting the offense to look like world beaters right now, nor is he expecting the unit to be humming and firing on all cylinders either.

"We’re trying to get better. We’re not even close. We’re working towards playing in September, obviously. At this point, it’s strictly how much can we actually learn from everyday. We’re not evaluating maybe some of the things you would normally evaluate in a game, right? Or in the season. How many mental errors did we have?" Coen said.

But that, of course, is the point of the offseason program. For a team learning new schemes on both sides of the ball, there will be learning moments and growing pains before complete development.

The Jaguars have embraced their youth, however, and they are not shying away from it in the early stages of the offseason.

"How much can we continue to be disciplined with our communication, formations, alignments, assignments? Are we going to catch every ball and throw every ball out here in the first day of Phase 3? I would assume not," Coen said.

"But more in terms of the operation, the communication, are we understanding what we’re trying to get accomplished out of the calls? It’s a learning phase, not necessarily a competitive phase. Do you want to be cleaner? Absolutely. Do you want it to look perfect? Yes, we all do. That’s just not the reality at this time in this phase.”